


the gift of hope

by DusDaDwarf



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Aomine Daiki & Momoi Satsuki Friendship, Aomine is a mess, Birthday, Birthday Presents, Fluff, M/M, Momoi is a queen like always, aokise - Freeform, happy birthday aomine!, he tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DusDaDwarf/pseuds/DusDaDwarf
Summary: Aomine Daiki wanted two things.
Relationships: Aomine Daiki/Kise Ryouta
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	the gift of hope

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe I wrote this four years ago? It's been sitting in my drafts ever since. 
> 
> Of course, I hardly write anything these days, and my writing style has changed quite a bit since I last touched this piece. I tried my best to finish it seamlessly, but if it seems like two different people wrote it at some point, this may be why!
> 
> My love for Kuroko no Basket and for Aomine has recently resurfaced, so I offer my lovesong to a pair I hold dear to my heart, AoKise! I hope you enjoy this piece that was originally written for his birthday as much as I did writing it!

Aomine Daiki wanted two things.

Firstly, he wanted a teddy bear.

Though it might seem like a childish wish, he’d never had one before. Since most of his time as a child was spent outside on the basketball courts, his mother thought that it would be plenty for him. It didn’t seem like he was interested in such a toy, which was true until one night Momoi invited him over for dinner.

“Aomine-kun!,” she shouted as she ran up to him, “look what my aunt bought me!”

In her hands, she held up a gorgeous golden-brown teddy bear. 

“Doesn’t it look pretty?” She squeezed it against her face, the big bear almost covering her tiny figure. Aomine couldn't help but stare at the bear and feel a bit jealous.

He wouldn’t admit to anyone, though.

Years have passed since then, and while he might be in his second year of middle school, he hasn’t grown out of his childish hope. He still wanted a fluffy friend to squeeze when he was alone, to hug when he felt down, and to talk to when he felt the need. 

The second thing was to grow closer to one of his teammates on the basketball team. He'd only been on the team for less than a year, but he was crazy talented. Though Aomine hoped, he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to establish the relationship he wanted to have with him.

Aomine was simply a hopeless guy. If he didn't borrow Momoi's notes for exams, he would be living off prayers.

He strolled miserably in the hallway, hanging his head down as these thoughts crossed his mind for the millionth time. He kept tugging at his tie, attempting to find a comfortable position for it. He showed up 10 minutes late for class.

Aomine slept through his classes, and after what seemed like years of waiting, it was finally time for lunch. 

After grabbing his preferred choice of meal, he brought his tray over to the table where the rest of the first-string members of the basketball team usually sat. Being the first one to show up, he patiently waited for the rest of his friends, but after 15 minutes, no one appeared.

He felt a vibration in his pocket, and he flipped his phone up to find that he had 34 unread messages from Momoi. Not being bothered to read the previous messages, he glanced at the latest one:

_ DAI-CHAN! Do you even have your phone with you?? I SAID TO MEET ME AT THE ROOFTOP!!!! _

She was mad.

Aomine threw away the lunch he didn’t finish and hurried up to the rooftop. The last thing he needed was for her to scold him (her scolding was pretty spine-chilling, but also, extremely annoying.)

He climbed up the last step and opened the door to the rooftop, only to be exposed to a lively, colourful scene. Surrounding him were some members of the first string and Momoi. They were standing behind a table with bunches of helium balloons placed on each side. In the middle of it was a big chocolate cake that read  _ Happy Birthday Aomine _ ! 

"Aomine-kun," Momoi shouted,"happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday, Aomine-kun/Aomine/Mine-chin," Kuroko, Midorima and Murasakibara chorused after her. 

Oh man, Aomine had totally forgotten. Surveying the scene, he realized that Akashi wasn't there (not that he expected him to be). But when he didn't hear a certain blonde's cheery voice, he looked around more carefully.

Kise wasn't there.

"Dai-chan...?" Momoi called. Aomine must have looked pretty unhappy because the cheerful look that was on her face a second ago was completely drowned in his gloom.

"Oh... hey. You didn't need to plan this for me," he said with his straightest face while sticking his pinky in his ear, "though thanks anyways, I guess."

"Can we eat the cake now?" Murasakibara asked.

"I need to leave for something right now," Midorima said, looking at his watch. He dropped an encyclopedia in Aomine's hands. "Here is today's lucky item for Virgo. A shame if anything were to go wrong today." He started to walk away.

"Oi, Midorima! You can't just throw a 1000 page book at me and leave!" Aomine shouted in irritation.

Kuroko handed him a stick of deodorant. "You're a year older, please learn how to take care of yourself," he told him before he followed Midorima.

"TETSU!" Aomine cried after him. 

"Here you go, Mine-chin," Murasakibara said as he handed him a bag of chips, "You can have one since I didn't know it was your birthday. by the way, are you gonna eat the cake?"

"No," Aomine muttered, "take it."

Murasakibara headed over to the table where the cake was, and after some reluctance, Momoi handed the glutton the whole cake, who happily embraced it and left the rooftop. With the departure of three members, only Momoi and Aomine remained at the scene now.

"Could you at least try and appreciate what I do for you?" Momoi cried.

"I do, I do, I did," Aomine replied with a stifled yawn.

Momoi rolled her eyes and handed him the latest Mai-chan photobook. "Well, have a great day, then," she said, walking past him to follow the others.

"Hey, Satsuki! Wait!" he called after her. She stopped at the door and jerked towards him. 

Aomine wanted to phrase his sentence in the least awkward, obvious way possible. So he decided to go with, "Where are Akashi and Kise?"

"Akashi-kun had things to take care of,” Momoi replied, “but he told me to extend his birthday wishes to you. And I saw Ki-chan here in the morning, but I got a text from him earlier today telling me that he wouldn’t be able to make it here today. I haven't seen him since. I think he left school early."

"Alright..."

"Also, I need you to come shopping with me today after school. I need to grab a few things, and I'll need your help to carry them."

"Sure."

"Alright. I’ll meet you later then!" Momoi waved and left.

Aomine stood alone on the rooftop for a while before walking to its edge and lying down on his back. He dropped all his gifts beside him and gazed blankly at the clouds that passed by in the sky.

Though he wouldn’t admit it, he was burning on the inside. Joy, anger, disappointment, happiness and many more emotions infuriated his heart. He felt betrayed, even though there wasn’t really anything to feel betrayed about. He himself forgot about his own birthday after all.

But he’s just a hopeless guy, after all.

***

After school, Aomine was waiting for Momoi in the deserted corner of the school, where he usually waited. Suddenly, he heard an unmistakable voice shrieked in the background.

"Aominecchi!"

He looked up to find Kise frantically scrambling his way. He looked like a total dumbass, running with both hands behind his back, but since it was Kise he somehow managed to look cute at the same time. He stopped a couple metres in front of him and started panting really loudly. His blonde hair was an enormous mess and his face was swimming in sweat, as if they had just finished basketball practice (which they didn’t have today).

"Aominecchi," Kise said between breaths. "Thank god I managed to catch you be-"

"Where the hell were you today?" Aomine almost shouted. He was mad, but he didn't know why.

"I was-" Kise coughed, "I went home in the morning."

"Why? Did you forget what today was?!" Aomine screamed. He felt guilty that he was telling Kise it was his birthday when he forgot himself, and selfish for making him act on it. 

Kise looked down. His yellow bangs floated in front of his eyes, and he shuffled his feet nervously. 

"I didn’t," he whispered.

Aomine was slightly taken aback by his response. "Then?"

Kise took a deep breath. "Well... you see..." he stuttered, "I saw Momocchi and the others this morning... and they all had gifts." He scratched the back of his head with one hand. "And I didn't. I guess I felt a little guilty and rushed out at lunchtime to get you one." He looked back up at Aomine.

Aomine wanted to smile, hop out of his skin and jump around like a dork, but he used all his willpower to stop himself. Kise felt like a completely different person when he was acting timid. Butterflies fluttered all around his insides.

Kise still held his hands behind his back. "So when I got to the store, I realized I spent all my earnings for this month! So I rushed home to find something I could put together quickly, but I couldn't find anything on the spot..." 

Aomine knew that his parents and sisters weren't at home on weekdays due to school and work, but he was starting to feel guilty that Kise missed a whole lot of the school day because of him. 

"But you didn't have to go that far-" Aomine started.

"So I basically searched my whole house for the last five hours until I found something..." Kise closed his eyes and threw his hands out in front of him. "I'm sorry it’s not something shiny and new or if it’s something you don’t really like, it's a terrible gift!"

Aomine stared at what was handed to him. In his hands, Kise held a soft, plush teddy bear. 

Not only did it look brand new, the detail on the toy was impeccable. The bear was a splendid shade of ocean blue, and wore a little vest which was covered in embroidery. It had big, blue beaded eyes, which Aomine has his own eyes glued on. 

“Ahh, Aominecchi, you don’t like it, do you?” Kise stammered, “this was a silly idea, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll just-”

“It’s perfect,” Aomine interrupted Kise, and reached out and took the bear from Kise’s hands. “How’d you know?”

“Huh?” Kise replied.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Um,” the bear feels really soft in Aomine’s hands. “Thanks, Kise. I appreciate you took the whole day to pick this out for me. I actually like it a lot.”

“Oh,” Kise said. “If you like it, that’s good then! I’m glad I didn’t end up wasting my time.”

Aomine continued to fawn over the bear he held in his hands, and there was a moment of silence between them. 

“Does he have a name?” Aomine asked.

“Oh, a name?” Kise answered. “No, actually, I haven’t really touched this bear at all. My parents got it for me as a kid but I was never really into stuffed toys, so I didn’t play with it a lot.”

“What if I named it Kise, since you’re the one who gave it to me?” Aomine joked.

“Now that’s just silly, Aominecchi. You could try a little harder to give it a proper name.”

“Kise it is,” Aomine said with a confident nod. 

“You’re pretty hopeless,” Kise laughed. Aomine thought he saw a tint of red on Kise’s cheeks that wasn’t present earlier. 

“Anyways, I’m guessing you’re waiting for Momocchi here, so since I’ve given my gift to you, I’ll get going now,” the blonde said. “I hope you have a happy birthday!”

Aomine felt as light as a feather. He let a small smile slip from his control. “Thanks, Kise. I’ll see you later.”

He watched Kise hurrying back to the main entrance of the building, seeing the other boy get smaller and smaller the further he got away from him until he disappeared. It wasn’t even a few seconds after when Momoi finally appeared behind him.

“Dai-chan! Sorry I took a while. Were you waiting long?” Momoi asked, before noticing the furry friend Aomine held in his hands. “Oh! Where did this come from?” 

Aomine held out his hands. “Kise just came by,” he responded. “Apparently he missed the whole school day just to look for this to give me.”

“Well isn’t that cute,” Momoi teased. She leaned in, to take a closer look at the bear. “It looks pretty close to the one my aunt gave me back then, doesn’t it?”

“I’m going to name it after Kise,” Aomine declared.

“You can’t be serious.” Momoi started to walk ahead of Aomine, who was still ogling the bear at this point. His face said it all. 

Momoi looked back. “Hey, I’m going on ahead, slowpoke,” she said as she headed towards the gate, “you can catch up when you’re done admiring your new best friend.”

Aomine took a few seconds to process Momoi’s words than usual, because frankly, he was ascending. Not just because of the beautiful bear he held in his hands, but also because he didn’t know how to process seeing Kise more flustered than usual. He seemed to be shier than how he usually seemed. He could’ve swore he saw him blush. Or maybe that had been his imagination?

He slowly started to move his feet, following Momoi’s steps towards the way out of the school. Aomine ran his hands down the fur of the bear when he felt the paper tags of the bear near where the tail was. He turned the bear over and unfolded the tag from its messy, crumpled up state, expecting to find boring manufacturer’s requirements and customer care instructions. However, when Aomine took a second look at what was written, his eyes widened and his heart dropped right then and there.

_ Aominecchi! Happy Birthday! I don’t know how to write this stuff, so I’m going to get to the point. I’ve admired you for a while now- like in basketball, I mean! Whenever we’re in practice, you’re so cool and effortless. I want to be able to play like you do! I would never be able to bring myself to say this stuff to your face, so I’m gonna ask you here: can we play a one on one sometime outside of practice? _

It was a mystery as to how Kise fit so many moving words on that little tag. 

“Dai-chan!” Momoi called out. She was now several hundred metres ahead of Aomine, whose eyes kept going over the words, his entire body trying not to combust from the exhilaration he was feeling each time the same words hit him like a truck again and again.

“Dai-chan! Hurry up a little! God, you’re so hopeless!”

Aomine awoke from his trance at Momoi’s words. He looked up to realize how great the distance between them had become. 

“Hold up, Satsuki,” he yelled after her, picking up his pace. The soft bear was tucked under his arm as he ran ahead to meet Momoi where she was. He struggled to hide the warmth that did not stop rushing into his face. His smile just grew bigger and bigger.

“Aaaaah,” he found himself whispering to himself, and the bear.

Aomine was a hopeless guy, after all.

But perhaps, he wasn’t as hopeless as he thought he was.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I mostly do art now so you can find me pretty much anywhere @dusdadwarf!


End file.
